No state has an absolute right to put its worst criminals to death although a majority of a state's residents may wish to confer that right on it. Of course all states do kill people, even where they do not have the death penalty. Our police are armed (by the state) and people get killed in shoot outs with them.
DNA testing and other methods of modern crime scene science can now effectively eliminate almost all uncertainty as to a person's guilt or innocence. One of the biggest arguments against the death penalty is the possibility of error. Sure, we can never completely eliminate all uncertainty, but nowadays, it's about as close as you can get. DNA testing is over 99 percent effective. And even if DNA testing and other such scientific methods didn't exist, the trial and appeals process is so thorough it's next to impossible to convict an innocent person. Remember, a jury of 12 members must unanimously decide there's not even a reasonable doubt the person is guilty. The number of innocent people that might somehow be convicted is no greater than the number of innocent victims of the murderers who are set free.
LWOP cannot prevent or deter offenders from killing prison staff or other inmates (299 homicides occurred in state prisons between 2001 and 2006) or taking hostages to further an escape bid, because they have nothing to lose by so doing.
However good the security of a prison, someone will always try to escape and occasionally will be successful. If you have endless time to plan an escape and everything to gain from doing so, there is a very strong incentive.
We have no guarantee that future state administrations will not release offenders who were imprisoned years previously, on the recommendations of various professionals who are against any form of punishment in the first place. Twenty or 30 years later, it is very difficult to remember the awfulness of an individual's crime and easy to claim that they have reformed.
The death penalty is important because it could save the lives of thousands of potential victims who are at stake
It should also be noted that only those convicted of first degree murder with aggravating circumstances can be given the death penalty. These aggravating factors include such things as torturing, kidnapping, raping or robbing their victim.
I heard on the news last month, February 2000, where a 62 year-old grandmother, Betty Beets, was pleading for her life because she was on death row and was going to be executed. At first, I felt very sorry for her, but after doing research on her, I learned she had five husbands. She had already killed the fourth one, and served a prison sentence for murder, and she got out of prison early. She murdered the fifth husband-she shot him, and buried him in her back yard. Betty Beets was imprisoned a second time, and now was pleading for her life? It has been proven these killers do it again and again. The rate of recidivism is high for people who commit murder and crimes. I feel murderers should be executed the first time because chances are they will come out of prison and kill another innocent person again. We need stricter laws and swift death penalty.
Our justice system shows more sympathy for criminals than it does victims. It's time we put the emphasis of our criminal justice system back on protecting the victim rather than the accused. Remember, a person who's on death row has almost always committed crimes before this. A long line of victims have been waiting for justice. We need justice for current and past victims.
The death penalty gives closure to the victim's families who have suffered so much. Some family members of crime victims may take years or decades to recover from the shock and loss of a loved one. Some may never recover. One of the things that helps hasten this recovery is to achieve some kind of closure. Life in prison just means the criminal is still around to haunt the victim. A death sentence brings finality to a horrible chapter in the lives of these family members.
Justice: “I hold life sacred, and because I hold it sacred, I feel that anyone who takes some one’s life should know that thereby he forsakes his own and does not just suffer an inconvenience about being put into prison for sometime
Justice is better served. The most fundamental principle of justice is that the punishment should fit the crime. When someone plans and brutally murders another person, doesn't it make sense that the punishment for the perpetrator also be death?
Cost
Money is not an inexhaustible commodity and the state may very well better spend our tax dollars on the old, the young and the sick rather than the long term imprisonment of murderers, rapists etc.
However in the USA the cost of executing someone over giving them life in prison is often higher. This is because of endless appeals being allowed in most states where the average time spent on death row is over 16 years. It is estimated that a capital case resulting in execution costs $3-4 million, whereas the typical cost of keeping someone in prison is $30-35,000 a year or less than a million dollars for a typical life sentence. However this figure does not include for appeals and the increasing cost of health care as inmates age. The states of Colorado, Kansas, Maryland, Montana and New Hampshire have all considered abolition due to the high cost of capital cases effecting their budget deficits. California will spend an estimated $137 million
during 2009 on its 700 capital cases.
Prisoner parole or escapes can give criminals another chance to kill.
Retribution.
Execution is a very real punishment rather than some form of "rehabilitative" treatment, the criminal is made to suffer in proportion to the offence. Whether there is a place in a modern society for the old fashioned principal of "an eye for an eye" is a matter of personal opinion. Retribution is seen by many as a reason for favoring the death penalty. It is also felt by many families of murder victims to be a strong reason for witnessing the execution of their loved one's murderer, in states that allow this, as it provides closure for them. Anti capital punishment campaigners are fond of mis-quoting Ghandi’s saying that "an eye for an eye makes the world go blind". This is nonsense because it wrongly presumes that we all commit murder, whereas only a tiny proportion of people do. Given a population of around 306 million and a homicide rate of around 15,200 per annum less than 0.4% of the population actually commit a homicide in any given year. Or conversely 99.6% of us do not kill.
$500 - 600 per week at present for an ordinary prisoner which is around $800,000 - ￡900,000 for a typical sentence of 30 years served in an ordinary prison. The cost is much higher for maximum security prisoners.
Soaring health care costs for ageing inmates is a major problem in many states. In Kentucky with a relatively small prison population it is estimated that it will cost the state $20 million in 2010 for inmate health care.
We should weigh the death of the convicted murders against the loss of life of his victims and the possibility of potential victims to murder (p. 129)
In arguments of the death penalty, there are two lives to think about. Too much emphasis is placed on the convicted murderer, the one being executed, and the victim is all forgotten.
Remember, the death penalty saves lives. Repeat murders are eliminated and foreseeable murders are deterred. You must consider the victim as well as the defendant.
I feel murderers should be executed the first time because chances are they will come out of prison and kill another innocent person again. We need stricter laws and swift death penalty.
Deterrent
the Federal prison had a man sentenced to Life who, since he has been in prison committed three more murders on three separate occasions .They were prison guards and inmates. There’s no more punishment he can receive, therefore, in many cases, the death penalty is the only penalty that can deter.
The laws today are too lenient. If there is no death penalty in your state, and a criminal kills someone, it is because he felt he could get out in 10 years or less from prison. There is no fear of death for him. They see other murderers in the state get away with murder, so they, too, can get away with it. They don’t have to fear the death penalty. In fact, I read where a husband intentionally moved to a non death penalty state, so he could murder his wife and get away with it. Many murders are premeditated. People in the “heat of passion”should make it a point to evade the argument or the environment. Remember it could be one of your loved ones. Can you imagine what it would be like to have your loved one murdered? There are no words that can explain the loss of your loved one to murder.
In California, as in most death penalty jurisdictions, to sentence a defendant to death the fact-finder must make three determinations: (1) that the defendant committed a first-degree murder; (2) that the defendant meets the statutory criteria for death-eligibility; and (3) that, in light of the aggravating and mitigating factors, the defendant deserves the death penalty. In California, the first two determinations are made together at the guilt phase of the trial when the fact-finder decides whether the defendant is guilty of first-degree murder and whether any charged special circumstance is true. If the defendant is found guilty and a special circumstance is found true, the case proceeds to a penalty phase, where the fact-finder determines the defendant‘s sentence. At the penalty phase, the fact-finder is directed to take into account a list of eleven factors, the first of which is ―[t]he circumstances of the crime of which the defendant was convicted in the present proceeding and the existence of any special circumstances found to be true.‖The fact-finder will impose the death penalty if the fact-finder concludes that the aggravating circumstances outweigh the mitigating circumstances. The list of factors does not consist of propositional questions but instead directs the sentencer to consider certain subjects, and the sentencer is not required to make findings as to any of the factors. Nor is the sentencer limited by the direction to weigh aggravation against mitigation; rather, ―[e]ach juror is free to assign whatever moral or sympathetic value he deems appropriate to each and all of the various factors he is permitted to consider‖and to decide whether death is ―the appropriate penalty under all the circumstances.‖
The breadth of death-eligibility under the California scheme is a product of the interplay between the definition of first-degree murder and the definition of the special circumstances. At present, there are twenty-one categories of first-degree murder, divided into two groups: eight categories of malice-murder, and thirteen categories of felony-murder. There are thirty-three separately enumerated special circumstances that render a first-degree murderer death-eligible, including twelve felony-murder special circumstances. The California Supreme Court has held unconstitutional on vagueness grounds the ―heinous, atrocious or cruel‖special circumstance, but all of the remaining special circumstances call for a relatively narrow factual determination by the fact-finder, in contrast with the more open-ended eligibility factors used in other states. Thirty of the remaining thirty-two special circumstances—all but the ―prior murder‖circumstance, and, in rare cases, the multiple- murder circumstance —single out purportedly aggravating circumstances of the crime itself.
Steven F. Shatz, The Eighth Amendment, the Death Penalty and
Ordinary Robbery-Burglary Murderers: A California Case Study
41. Who is the fact-finder?
[A] Judge [B] Court [C] Policeman [D] Jury
42. In the context of the paragraphs, who is the sentencer?
[A] Judge [B] Court [C] Defense lawyer [D] Juror
43. ―The breadth of death-eligibility under the California scheme is a product of the interplay between the definition of first-degree murder and the definition of the special circumstances.‖This sentence means .
[A] The definition of first-degree murder and the definition of the special circumstances are provided for in California law.
[B] Whether or not a person can be sentenced with death penalty depends on how the sentencer explains first-degree murder and the special circumstances.
[C] Whether or not a person can be sentenced with death penalty depends on how the sentencer combines first-degree murder with the special circumstances.
[D] Whether or not a person can be sentenced with death penalty depends on how the sentencer fits the fact situation into the scheme of first-degree murder and the special circumstances.
44. According to the last paragraph, how many of the felony-murder special circumstances is (are) not death-eligible?
The American Civil Liberties Union believes the death penalty inherently violates the constitutional ban against cruel and unusual punishment and the guarantees of due process of law and of equal protection under the law. Furthermore, we believe that the state should not give itself the right to kill human beings –especially when it kills with premeditation and ceremony, in the name of the law or in the name of its people, and when it does so in an arbitrary and discriminatory fashion.
Capital punishment is an intolerable denial of civil liberties and is inconsistent with the fundamental values of our democratic system. The death penalty is uncivilized in theory and unfair and inequitable in practice. Through litigation, legislation, and advocacy against this barbaric and brutal institution, we strive to prevent executions and seek the abolition of capital punishment.
The ACLU’s opposition to capital punishment incorporates the following fundamental concerns:
The death penalty system in the US is applied in an unfair and unjust manner against people,largely dependent on how much money they have, the skill of their
attorneys, race of the victim and where the crime took place. People of color are far more likely to be executed than white people, especially if thevictim is white
The death penalty is a waste of taxpayer funds and has no public safety benefit. The vast majority of law enforcement professionals surveyed agree that capital punishment does not deter violent crime; a survey of police chiefs nationwide found they rank the death penalty lowest among ways to reduce violent crime. They ranked increasing the number of police officers, reducing drug abuse, and creating a better economy with more jobs higher than the death penalty as the best ways to reduce violence. The FBI has found the states with the death penalty have the highest murder rates.
Innocent people are too often sentenced to death. Since 1973, over 140 people have been released from death rows in 26 states because of innocence. Nationally, at least one person is exonerated for every 10 that are executed.